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Down to the Sea in Ships
Maritime academies are
hidden college treasures, offering a bachelor's degree at bargain
prices and virtually assuring their students of well-paying jobs
immediately after graduation - at sea or, just as often, on land.
There are seven public maritime academies offering bachelor's degrees in the U.S. This article focuses on one of them. Many other countries have similar programs.
BY TARA ARONSON
© Copyright 1997 by Parents' Press
As a senior at Armijo High School in Fairfield, California, Erika Milton's freeform college plans were on an even keel with those of many of her classmates: Spend two years at a junior college fulfilling general education requirements, then transfer to a traditional four-year college to pursue a bachelor of arts degree.
Two years later, the 19-year-old sophomore at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, CA was sailing past her former classmates, taking general education and engineering courses simultaneously as part of the unique school's intensive four-year program.
"By the time they get to a four-year college, I'll be graduating," the soft-spoken mechanical engineering major said of her high school friends. "They think it's a pretty good deal."
And it's a bargain Milton knows will keep getting better. The rigorous personal and academic standards demanded of Cal Maritime students ultimately guarantee smooth sailing in the future: The school's engineering graduates earn an average annual starting salary of $43,000 and every member of the class of 1996 had a job upon graduation.
A Different Path
For more than a decade, Cal Maritime has had the most successful job placement rate of any college on the West Coast, a factor that weighed heavily in Milton's decision to embark on an entirely different course of college study than some of her Armijo High classmates.
Milton's plans to follow the community college-to-university route toward a degree in psychology began to change when her mother, Linda Milton, a nurse practitioner, suggested a visit to Cal Maritime at the recommendation of several of her patients. It was a college Erika Milton, like most people outside maritime circles, had never heard of.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Write to:
Enrollment Information Center
Cal Maritime
P.O. Box 1392
Vallejo, CA 94590-0644
To schedule a
campus visit, call 1-800-561-1945
or (707) 654-1336
at least two days ahead.
Located at 200 Maritime Academy Drive, Vallejo 94590-8181
e-mail:enroll@csum.edu
Website
http://www.csum.edu
